Sean, jake, a few of the rest of you, you knew Dad, you will remember. This is for him
My dad, where to start. what can i even really say about this legendary man. what is there to say which hasnt been said a million times over, what i wont say a million times again before the day i die.
His name was Kevin Robert Gibbons, i guess thats a good place to start. he was born in Bromsgrove in the UK on 4 June 1955 to Beryl Gibbons (n/e Budd) an Englishwoman, and Robert Gibbons, a Cork man through and through. when he was 21 he returned to ireland, to the place where he had always felt some attraction too, and began to set up home. he travelled for several years, had a child along the way from what i've been told, and one year while visiting france, he had an accident. he fell from a balcony and lost all his memories. from what i've heard, he never remembered much from before that. not his child, not much at all, definatly not many if any of his friends. it broke a lot of people.
several years later, he met my mother, and had me. by this time he was living full time in west cork, and had moved his father back over after the death of his mother. my grandfather said living in that same house by Kilmichael between macroom and dunmanway for the rest of his days.
he split from my mother when i was about a year old, and brought a piece of land in copeen, between macroom and eniskean, and lived there for the rest of his life. he loved his garden, and grew many plants of the legal and illegal kind :p he was a complete stoner and was never to be found without a pipe or joint in his hand.
in 1998 around the christmas he became very ill, and was rushed to hospital on christmas day. it turns out he had phneumonia, and during the time he was in hospital with that they discovered that he was a HepC sufferer. from that moment on he never touched a drop of alcohol until the year before he died, nor did he touch tobacco again. instead he focused his life on his garden, and on his friends. he discovered a great love for travelling, and spent years going on holidays, so he could get to see the world for himself.
in summer 07, just after i completed school, he organised a holiday for me to celebrate the end of my exams. unfortunatly, i was unable to go on that holiday with him due to hospital visits, and had to cancel. i'm glad now that i did. while visiting greece on this he contracted cancer, and when he returned home was rushed into hospital within a week. he had just enough time to move into the new bungalow he had built for us both. he lived there for a week before they took him in, and he never went home again.
they couldnt diagnose what was wrong with him for well over a month while he was in hospital, and finally managed to diagnose him on 31st august 2007 (i think, i'm not good with numbers) with liver cancer. it was terminal, but they could give him an extra six months if they gave him a new liver but the cancer would just return. he refused, on the basis that someone else could have it and live a full life and be happy. he closed himself down that night, after calling his solicitor and changing his will, so he left much of his assets to cancer charities, and to the cancer ward in CUH, the hospital he was housed in. three days later, on the afternoon of the second of september 2007, we got a call to say that he was on his last few hours and that it was time to go and say goodbye if that was what we wanted. i walked into the room and held his hand, and i said hey dad, i love you. and then i broke down and went home. my mother stayed with him that night, even though she didnt know what to say. she just sat and sung to him all night. at about 6:45 that morning i got a call to say that he had gone. my father, kevin robert gibbons, had left this earth between 6:00 and 6:15 am on the morning of the 3 September 2007.
but that doesnt really talk about who he was, the father i truly knew. all those things are just fact. thats just the facts of his life, and doesnt say anything about who he truly was.
the fact was, my father was an amazing man. he was incredibly loyal, and incredibly loving. he would have done anything for anyone, and he loved people so much.
i'll always remember him as the man who everyone knew. even now, two years later, i say his name to random strangers and they tell me another story about the man, another thing which they knew. it happens all the time, whenever i get talking to anyone. if they ask about me, i mention my father, and nine times out of ten they would have known him. its nice, in a way, to have that. because all these different people, they all know who i am from that. i dont look too like my father, but i look enough like him that occasionally someone will know me as kevs daughter. and i live for that, for being recognised for my gibbons heritage as well as my hussey heritage.
dad loved fishing, more than any other sport. it was his passion. he wasnt cruel with it though, he truly did believe in catching what you need. if he caught a surplus, he would freeze it and eat it at a later date. he didnt believe in letting anything go to waste, but he loved the tranquility of just sitting by the side of the sea or by the edge of a river and relaxing. it was his first love i think, more so than any person.
he was illiterate, but that didnt stop him loving literature. he loved nothing more than to listen to all the fantasy novels he had on cassete. even better than that though, was when i would read to him. if i was staying to him we might read ten chapters a night, out loud. he loved the old classics, the hobbit and lord of the rings were his favourites, but he also loved the modern greats, pullman and paolini and even jk rowling. so long as it was fantasy, he was hooked. we used to get into huge fights about my reading, because if i got a new book i would just want to rush ahead and read it to myself, and then read it to him after, but he always wanted to read it along with me, because he didnt want me getting ahead. he loved the surprise as much as i did, and the look on my face when i was reading aloud to him and hit a shock. he used to laugh so much when i'd have to stop reading to cry over something in a story, or to laugh, or just cause i was in shock.
children were always a passion of his, even though i was the only child he had around him of his own. he loved all kids, loved just to play with them and act like a child around them. and them seemed to love him too, because he wasnt one of the boring adults who would just sit around talking. he used to play fight as much as the roughest boy, and yet be able to play nice and girlie with the best of the small girls. it made him so popular with them, i remember so many times watching kids fight over who got to spend time with him first.
he loved the outside too, so much. he lived outside most of his life, in teepees, caravans and benders. and it never stopped him for an instant, because he was at home. he taught me from such an early age how to light fires, and gut and skin animals, because he believed in living from the earth as much as possible. it was rare that we would have a meal which wouldnt include something out of his garden, the latest veg which had ripened or the latest fruit what needed eating while it was at his best. it was just the way he was. he loved what he had and never asked for more, not once in his life.
there are just two more things i want to say which really sum up the type of person my father was.
when he died, he requested that he not be burried. instead, he asked to be cremated and his ashes scattered over the garden of the house which was his home, the land which he had put so much work into from 1991 onwards. we did this, but before we did this, we did one last thing to make him happy.
his dream had always been to have a party at his house, to actually use the new bungalow he'd put so much money and love into building from scratch. and we did that for him. the day of the funeral, instead of having your traditional wake, we threw a party. while some of us went off to the crematorium to send him on the last step of his way, the friends he had with young children went back to his house and lit up a barbique, and lit a bonfire, and started setting out food. and we got out his sterio, and we just had a party for him. we ate all the fish he had caught and had stored, and we smoked all his weed, and its what he would have wanted. we gave him his last party, as his last send off. and the sterio that night, the music what was played was the last story of his life. somehow throughout the night the people who were in control of the music changed along with the progression of his life. his old friends, from when he was a child started off the night, and at the end of the night we played bohemian rapsody, one of his favourite songs in his last years, then packed up the sterio. and the last song of the night, we needed no sterio. there was only about twenty of us left then, sitting around the bonfire, and my mother picked up the aucoustic guitar, and started to play, and we all stood up and sung along with her
another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
so make the best of this test and dont ask why
its not a question but a lession learned in time
its something unpredictable but in the end is right
i hope you have the time of your life
so take the photographs those still frames in your mind
hang them on a shelf of good health and good times
tatoos of memories and dead skin on trial,
for what its worth it was worth all the while
its something unpredictable but in the end is right
i hope you have the time of your life
and as we finished we all said goodbye, just breathed it, and let him go.
the next day we brought his ashes back, and buried them in the garden along wiht some of his personal possessions, and planted a weeping willow tree over the site we burried his last remains. a last dedication to a wonderful man.
i found out several weeks later that on the night of his funeral, at twelve stone circles around britain, including stonehenge, and another six across mainland europe and also on the hill of tara itself, groups of people, twelve minimum, had stayed up all night in vigil. it actually got on the news, the speculation was that it was some pagan ritual long since forgotten, but we who knew him knew the truth. this was no ritual, no festival, this was just a wake. a wake for a wonderful man, a legend in his own right, and someone who will never ever be forgotten. we all said goodbye in our own ways that night, and he left the mark he would have always wanted on the world.
he will always, always be remembered as kev, the laughter man, the smily man, the person who loved everyone and forgot no-one. and that, i think, is the greatest thing any man could be remembered for.
Rest in Peace Dad, Even In Death May You Be Triumphant
